


Shadow Play

by UnityGhost



Series: Post-Asmodeus Sabriel Feels [26]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Caring Sam Winchester, Comforting Sam Winchester, Crying Gabriel (Supernatural), Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gabriel Has Issues (Supernatural), Gabriel Has Nightmares (Supernatural), Gabriel Has PTSD (Supernatural), Gabriel Lives, Gabriel Needs a Hug (Supernatural), Gabriel in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, PASF, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Sabriel, Post-Asmodeus Sabriel Feels, Post-Season/Series 13, Post-Season/Series 13 AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Sam Winchester, Sabriel - Freeform, Sabriel friendship, Sad Gabriel (Supernatural), Scared Gabriel (Supernatural), Stockholm Syndrome, Torture, platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:22:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23903800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnityGhost/pseuds/UnityGhost
Summary: “Don’t try and talk to me about home. Because sometimes I think I want to go home, and then I remember that I have no clue where home is supposed to be - in Hell, maybe, as ludicrous as that sounds; or I guess having no home at all feels more like home than anything else.”
Relationships: Gabriel/Sam Winchester
Series: Post-Asmodeus Sabriel Feels [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1150553
Comments: 22
Kudos: 86





	Shadow Play

**Author's Note:**

> Part 26 (generic quip about having no life) of Post-Asmodeus Sabriel Feels, my angst-tastic series about what would have happened if Gabriel had survived season 13.
> 
> Shoutout to Banjo the cat (you know her if you follow me on Tumblr) for helping me write this. She pressed many a random key with her paws, and voila. A fanfic. Thanks, Banjo.

Although Sam knew that Gabriel preferred to keep himself busy, there could be no denying an underlying sense of duty.

“You put up with me,” Gabriel had told him recently, with an air of factuality that twisted Sam’s stomach. “Come on, you can’t expect me to not pay my dues.”

Then he had gone back to his pile of crumbling manuscripts and continued to scrawl English translations onto a legal pad.

The attitude and dedication were not new, but Sam felt disturbed by how straightforward Gabriel could be about this sometimes: now and again, he spoke of his own burdensomeness with no emotion at all.

To Gabriel, Sam understood, that sense of being in the way could not have been more real. Once in a while, it seemed that he was simply trying to accept it - or, worse, that he already had.

One Saturday, early in the morning, Sam found Gabriel already in the library, poring over a stack of volumes which were organized in what looked to Sam like senseless chaos but which Gabriel seemed able to interpret - judging by the way he picked up one book, wrote something down, then leaned across the table to grab another and flip through its pages before readily picking up another book from what seemed an otherwise random location.

“Why are you up so early?” Sam asked Gabriel.

Gabriel did not look up from his work. “Why are _you_ up so early, champ?”

“Are you, you know, all right?”

“Of course I’m all right.”

Sam waited for him to say more. When Gabriel remained silent, Sam said, “Yeah, okay,” and left.

He returned half an hour later with two cups of coffee from a few blocks away.

“Here,” he said, pushing one across the table.

Gabriel looked surprised. “Heya, what’s this, for me?”

“Yeah. You know that sort of upscale place a few blocks over?”

“If by ‘upscale place’ you mean ‘hipster meeting house,’ then yes.”

“Well, it’s a little overpriced, but it’s good stuff. I got you a cappuccino that might taste more like a milkshake based on how much sweet stuff I asked them to mix in. Seeing as you’ve been up since - ”

“Never mind how long I’ve been up. Thanks; that was nice of you. But I thought you didn’t like beverages in the library?”

“Yeah, not when my brother is the one with the beverage. Thanks for all the work you’ve been doing lately.”

Gabriel shrugged. Sam looked more closely at him. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Slowly, Gabriel lifted the cup and took a sip. “It’s pretty great.” But there was a peculiar expression on his face that, as Sam studied it, grew less peculiar and more familiar: the crease in his brow, the tightness of his lips.

“Gabe,” Sam said.

“What?” Now Gabriel’s eyes were bright and hyper-alert. “What is it?”

Sam sat down across from him. “Something’s bothering you, huh?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to talk about it, but please don’t lie.”

Gabriel waved a dismissive hand. “I’m tired. Ever since that djinn managed to cop some archangel blood in Idaho last week, I’ve felt like I’m recovering from the flu or something.”

"If you're so tired, what are you doing up?"

Gabriel didn't answer.

Sam sighed. “It’s just us, you know. I don’t think anybody else is even awake.”

“Oh please, Cas doesn’t sleep.”

“Well, he’s not here right now, is he? Gabriel, please just don’t feel like you have to hide anything.”

Gabriel closed his eyes. “There’s some stuff that’s hard to explain.”

“Maybe I can help if I have some idea of what’s going through your head.”

“Maybe. But it won’t make any more sense to you than it does to me.”

“Try me.”

“It’s not just that, though. It’s …” Gabriel struggled for a moment. “It’ll make me seem, um …”

Sam thought about suggesting an adjective - childish, psychotic, whiny - based on the laundry list Gabriel had already given him, but decided to wait instead. Sometimes, he observed, their conversations began as morbid rounds of _Mad Libs._

“Ungrateful,” Gabriel finished.

Sam frowned. “For what?”

Gabriel avoided Sam’s eyes. “Everything. Asmodeus saw me as a Veruca Salt type. Never satisfied - always demanding more.” He swallowed, and Sam noticed that he had lost some color in his face. “Once in a while, though, he would surprise me with something nice. Food, or drink, or something to keep me warm. I guess maybe he wanted to prevent future bitching from his petulant toy.”

“I don’t know; sounds more like he was messing with you in some way, Gabriel.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I don’t think of you like that, you know. Neither does anyone else.”

“If I’d been good enough,” Gabriel continued, as though Sam had not spoken, “He wanted to spend time with me - or so he said. He used phrases like ‘good boy’ and ‘sweet pet’ and - well, sorry if you already had breakfast. Look, Sam, the thing is, there’s no pleasure like the pleasure of a beaten dog whose owner sidles in to stroke its bruised spine.” Gabriel paused. “Except you’d think I would never want him near me, wouldn’t you?”

Sam hesitated. “Well, yeah.”

“Mm-hmm. But there was so much relief in those moments - relief at finally seeing proof.”

Sam squinted. “Proof?”

“Proof that what he was saying to me was true. You know, that I was lucky to be there with him - because he was the only one who knew what was good for trash like me. And because he was the only one who knew what that trash was good for. It was a healthy reminder that if I wasn’t his plaything, I’d be useless. And …” Gabriel broke off, making a conscious effort to slow his breathing. “It was my rightful place, Sam. Well - I know now that it wasn’t, but how was I supposed to figure otherwise when I was still down there with him?”

Sam wondered if Gabriel really did know otherwise now, but dismissed the thought.

“And,” Gabriel barreled on, “The euphoria of his affection was always punctuated by a sense of - of ‘Don’t screw this up, Gabriel, not now that he’s shown he can love you.’ But of course I always _did_ find a way to screw things up. There was no pleasing the guy for more than a handful of hours at a time.” Gabriel lowered his eyes, surveying the coffee cup in front of him. “I tried harder at that than I’ve ever tried at anything else, Sam. Chalk it up to having no grace, no power. Or … or maybe I was just that bad at being good enough.”

“Hey.” Sam softened his voice. “I didn’t bring you the coffee because I want you to do anything for me.”

“I get it, I get it; you’re no Asmodeus. You really think I deserve good things.” Gabriel’s smile was cold. “Sam, do you really want to know what shot through my head when you brought this in?”

Sam nodded.

“I - ” But Gabriel paused. Seconds ticked by. Then he said, “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense even to me.”

“Were you afraid, maybe?"

“I don’t think so, no.”

He was right, Sam thought: Gabriel did not look frightened. This time, there was something else laced through his features, something Sam had been meaning to bring up for a while.

Tentatively, Sam spoke. “Hey, um, Gabriel - do you remember that night a few weeks ago, where you woke up from the nightmare?”

“Oh, you mean that _one nightmare_ I had that _one night,_ that _one time,_ amid _countless_ hours of dreamless slumber?”

Sam sighed. “When you woke up screaming and everybody came running in.”

“No, Sam. Please, paint a more vivid picture so I can add it to my scrapbook.”

“Well, do you remember how I asked you if you … you know … if you missed Asmodeus?”

Gabriel bristled. “Yes. I remember that.”

“I mean …”

Gabriel kept his gaze averted.

“Gabriel,” Sam said quietly, “Sometimes I have the sense you wish that … that he could be the one to come and help. Not me.”

Gabriel shut his eyes. “Do you have any idea how that makes me sound?”

“Um … sad?”

“No. Thankless.”

“You’re still worried about being ungrateful?”

“Uh, yeah, no shit.”

“I’m not accusing you of doing anything wrong. I get it - sort of. I mean, he did give you everything you had, right?”

Gabriel barked what sounded less like laughter and more like a shriek of terror. “And he made mighty sure I knew it. Sam, I don’t want Asmodeus - I want _you._ ”

In that moment, Sam thought he finally understood why Gabriel was disturbed and disgusted by the word “want.” There was something horrendously, nauseatingly powerful about how it sounded coming from Gabriel's mouth.

“Look,” said Gabriel, “It’s just - I - his love was in short supply, and he wasted it on me time and again, and I - I let him down.”

“He didn’t love you, Gabriel.”

“Don't, Sam. Don't say that, all right? I don’t like when you tell me he didn't love me.”

“I’m sorry, Gabe, but it’s true. You can’t think of his treatment as love.”

Gabriel turned away, but not before Sam saw tears in his eyes.

“Crap,” Sam whispered. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t want you to think that the way he handled you is the way you deserve to be treated, that’s all.”

Gabriel shook his head and muttered something.

“What?” asked Sam.

Gabriel cleared his throat. “Um - I failed him.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I tried to be enough.” Gabriel seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Sam now. “I tried to be worth what he was offering.”

Sam reached out and took Gabriel's hand. It was an old gesture of comfort, one that Gabriel almost never rejected - and he didn’t now. “Can you listen to me for a second?”

Without looking at him, Gabriel nodded.

“You could tell me anything at this point, I think - and we’d find a place for it in everything else we’ve had to work through. Okay? If you came to me to say you hate him or miss him or whatever - I mean, I never felt anything like that for Lucifer. I can’t say I ever once felt like I missed him. But all that means is that Lucifer is different from Asmodeus, and I’m a little different from you.”

“Sure, if by ‘different’ you mean - ”

“I don’t mean ‘better.’ I mean different.” Sam squeezed his hand, half-hoping that Gabriel would reciprocate and feeling disappointed when he didn’t. “You need to let me know what’s going through your head even if I might not totally get it. I’m - I’m a little confused, maybe, but not shocked. I don’t have expectations about what you’re going to feel. Whatever you’ve got going on is just part of everything else, okay? Please just - just don’t be scared to bring it up. Even if you were to come to me and tell me you hated me, we could make it fit. We could figure it out.”

All at once, Gabriel went white and jerked his hand out of Sam’s. “I don’t hate you!”

Sam blinked, startled.

“I don’t hate you!” Gabriel repeated. “In what universe would I claim to hate you? Where did that come from?”

“Nowhere! I’m just saying you could confess something super weird and we’d still - ”

“I don’t hate you! Do you think I hate you?”

“No, Gabriel. That’s not what I think.” Sam tried to sound soothing, but the truth was that Gabriel’s reaction might be the exception: Sam was not, in that moment, sure how to incorporate it into the bigger picture.

“I didn’t want to make you think I hated you,” Gabriel insisted. “Jesus, that’s why I didn’t want to tell you about this; I didn’t want to say anything because Dad knows it makes me sound like the spoiled brat Asmodeus always told me I was!”

“Gabriel - ”

“Missing him is betraying you, and I know that; but not missing him is betraying _him!_ Not that I’m worried about that, but - or I am, I think; I mean, I shouldn’t be, but - see, paying any mind to his feelings is pointless, but those moments of - of peace or safety or love or - Sam, they were important.”

“Okay. Hey, hey, listen, buddy - this isn’t about what you owe me. That was your home for a long time, so I get where you’re coming from. Home is home, even if it sucks. Don’t be so angry with yourself over it.”

“Please don’t use that word.” Gabriel’s voice trembled. “Please - don’t try and talk to me about _home,_ okay? Because sometimes I think I want to go home, and then I remember that I have no clue where home is supposed to be - in Hell, maybe, as ludicrous as that sounds; or I guess having no home at all feels more like home than anything else.”

“Wait,” Sam interjected, “You think you don’t have a home?”

“Ah.” Gabriel held up a hand. “Pause. Footnote: there is no consensus among the many factions of my conscience as to whether I have an obligation to make this my home, or if I owe it to all of you to resist the temptation to let myself feel any such thing.” 

Before Sam could reply, a new expression passed over Gabriel’s features, one that could not have been mistaken for anything but grief. His face took on the taut, ruddy sadness that Sam had only ever witnessed at memorials.

Slowly, Sam shook his head. “You don’t owe us that. Or anything else.”

Gabriel wiped his eyes. “Yeah, Sam. I do.”

“And you shouldn’t expect yourself to be able to pilot what you do and don’t feel about Asmodeus.”

“I’m not allowed to hope that things will at least make sense? No, of course not. I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe I expect everybody else to know. Obviously I anticipate that you’ll have all the answers. Another example of just how right he could be about me.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Yeah. Spoiled brat, remember?”

“Gabriel, dude … you start going on about yourself like that, you’ll get worked up.”

“Because as you can clearly see, I couldn’t be any damn calmer.” Gabriel scrubbed a hand forcefully, violently, back and forth against his tear-stained cheeks. “I’m stating facts. Picture it: me, feeling anything like grief for him when I have so much more now? That tells you more about me than you should ever have to know. It speaks volumes. Nothing is ever good enough for me, and - and I’m not good enough to make up for always wanting more.”

Sam could now recognize the warning signs in Gabriel’s face - harbingers of delirious panic brought on by memories too heavy to swallow. He saw the pallor, the beads of sweat, the clenched jaw, and owlishly bright eyes.

“Calm down,” he told Gabriel, trying to sound firm without posing a threat. “You’ll make yourself sick if you don’t. Okay?”

“Hmm,” Gabriel offered.

“You’re safe, Gabe. You have to remember that.”

“You know what pisses me off more than anything else right now? What really, really pisses me off?”

“Yeah?”

“That I’ve already got myself too damn sick to even try drinking the coffee you brought. So there you have it; you’ve wasted time and resources on an undeserving son of a - ”

“You can have it later, when you’re ready.”

“I was happy to have it, and then I just - I - I went and screwed things up again.”

“You really didn’t.”

“Sam …” Gabriel lowered his head and ran both hands through his hair. “I … man, I like to think I have more good days than bad. Since imagination is fun and healthy, and I love to walk the deliciously tender line between being an optimist and being a bullshitter.”

“Nobody’s keeping tabs on how many bad days you have. And backsliding is normal. Not ideal, I guess. But normal enough.”

Gabriel snorted. “Great. Feels good to know that everything happening right now is par for the course and I should just roll with it. Sam, this does not feel like it should be normal. Ever. In any context.”

“Then let it be a new version of normal."

“Jesus Christ,” Gabriel muttered. “You know what, Sammy? Let me tell you something about this ‘new normal.’”

“I’m listening.” Truthfully, however, Sam was not sure he wanted to hear. Gabriel didn't sound like he intended to offer any uplifting anecdotes.

“The other night,” Gabriel began, “I had another stupid dream. But this time we’re talking _actually_ stupid, okay? Not just _bad,_ but total gibberish. And when I jerked awake after this circus, I tried to talk myself down: ‘You know your crippled semi-human psyche is playing unpalatable games with itself. Relax, sergeant; take a breath and shimmy your sorry ass back into the present.’ Well, guess freakin’ what, Sam? It didn’t work. I felt frozen and sick and terrified, no matter how hard I wrestled with myself over it. I was so scared just by this flash fiction that had nothing to do with anything at all.”

“What was it?” Sam asked apprehensively.

“A piece of crummy abstract art. There was a shadow on the wall, some formless dark shape with a whole slew of possible identities. One second I felt like maybe I was seeing Dean, then Castiel, and even Jack for a split second there. Not you, though - never you.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, absolutely fabulous. Except that that meant I wanted you. I wanted you immediately. I had this feeling that each one of the others was evil, corrupt, gruesome - hungry for some Gabriel meat. So when I woke up, all I wanted was you. I wanted you so damn much, Sam.”

Sam’s blood ran cold. “Why didn’t you come get me, then?”

“Well, because all through this titillating romp into dreamland, I was thinking that as much as I was dying to call for help, I had no right to pester you. You didn’t need extra demands from your pesky houseguest. The last thing you deserved - and before you get on my case about it, this is just what was going through my head as I was dreaming; I couldn’t stop it - was Little Orphan Archangel to come whining to you about how the people you loved and trusted were out to get me.”

“I wouldn’t have - ”

“So when I woke up, you think I was ready to drag you into my umpteenth midnight meltdown? You needed sleep. And me, having no dignity, no control, not an ounce of self-respect - I curled up in bed and started bawling and then I squealed your name over and over again into my knees as if I expected your spidey senses to tingle and you’d come to rescue me from my own dadforsaken self. But there was also a very real possibility - or at least it felt real, you’ve got to understand that - that I’d go looking for you, and you’d be rightfully pissed off that I hadn’t allowed this shadow bitch to take me away.”

Sam stood up. Alarm flickered across Gabriel’s face. But then Sam crouched in front of him and said, “That kind of thing, Gabe? That kind of thing where you’re actually hurting yourself just to save face, or because you have it in your head that you shouldn’t be allowed access to compassion?” He cleared his throat in a hasty attempt to keep himself together. “That counts as an emergency. Always. Even if it happens ten times a day.”

Gabriel looked discomfited. “Sam - ”

“Don’t sit there and let him do that to you. Please. When that happens, you need help and you can’t afford to pretend you can wait for it.”

“I - ” Gabriel turned his face away. “Sam - ”

“What? What about that sounds so impossible to you?”

“It’s - it’s like I’ve said, I can’t live up to what you’re looking to get from me.”

“Gabriel, for the last time, I’m not looking for you to give me anything!”

“No, you are; you want me to heal, and I don’t know if I can. I certainly don’t have it in me right now - not yet.” Sam saw tears in his eyes. “And I’m sorry for that. I’m a tough nut to crack open and I get that. I exhaust you, though. Now, that’s partly on you for feeding into this idea that you can make me better, but mostly I’m just a difficult patient. I keep fighting your efforts.”

“You’re not putting up a fight with me. You’re fighting Asmodeus.”

“Oh yeah? If I’m working so hard to get him off my conscience, then riddle me this: why the hell should I feel anything other than total revulsion for him? Why is it that I think to myself, ‘I’m terrified and alone and I hope he shows up to help’? I couldn’t justify that if you paid me. And you can’t make this shit up, Sam. This is raw nonsense straight from the mind of a lost cause.”

“You’re allowed to grieve. I can’t say I understand; I haven’t been there. But it isn’t weird that you’d miss him sometimes.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it wouldn’t be weird if _you_ didn’t happen to be around.”

“You had him for hundreds and hundreds of years. And he was the only thing you had. He was everything to you.”

Gabriel groaned. “When you put it that way, it sounds so gross. It really does.”

“You can’t just replace everything you had with something new, and expect it to feel like home. At least not right away.”

Gabriel kept his gaze averted. No further tears had spilled from his eyes, although Sam could tell that, if Gabriel was going to put up a real fight, it was in response to the urge to cry.

“Please,” Sam said. “Please don’t keep yourself locked away when you wake up like that, or when you feel like something’s wrong. I’m right here; we’re all right here. We’ll connect the dots where we can, okay? But come on - I mean, who even really cares? It’s a language - sort of. Or not. Maybe just a bunch of made-up words that we can use to create a language of our own. Can we look at it that way?”

Gabriel jerked his head - not quite a nod, not quite a refusal. “Impressively well fleshed-out for an improvised metaphor, Sam.”

“I really hate the picture you just painted. I hate that you didn’t go looking for someone, anyone, just because you were afraid of being a nuisance.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I - Sam, I couldn’t get anybody else. It had to be you.”

“So I would’ve helped you.”

“And are you forgetting the very real possibility that it could have reminded you of your own experience in the pit?”

“I guess it could have, sure. It didn’t just now. But even if it did, can we maybe not pay that any attention unless it actually becomes an issue? For now, I want you to worry about yourself - not about me.”

“Perfect. Seeing as I’ve been provided explicit instructions to avoid worrying about you, it’s smooth sailing from here on out. Thanks, Sam. Now I don’t have to concern myself with whether or not you’re keeping your own head above water. And if the message isn’t clear, let me translate: shut up and let me care about you, you self-effacing dingleberry.”

“I’m serious. In moments like that, you have to put everything else on hold; you’ve got to look for help first thing. Like I said, it’s an emergency. Imagine if it were Jack. You’d want to - ”

“Stop right there. Don’t put that image in my head, and don’t compare Jack to me. He’s an entirely different species, Sam, and I’m not just talking about his human DNA.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Okay?”

“He’s not me, he’s nothing like me; there’s nothing wrong with that kid. I don’t even like that he has to breathe the same air as me - so don’t insult him by pretending like the two of us deserve the same treatment.” Gabriel’s face was flushed. “And now I can’t shake that scenario you just threw into my brain and it’s making me feel like I have to puke.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam told Gabriel, and meant it: he didn’t like the vision either. After a moment’s consideration, he decided not to address some of the more problematic themes wrapped in Gabriel’s protestations. So he went on, “It doesn’t matter to me how many times you find yourself in that position, okay? It’s just as important if it happens once a week or every night for a month, Gabriel. I promise one of us can help, and if it has to be me then get me right away. Text me if you have to; I keep my phone next to my bed. You won’t get better if you keep this up. You won’t heal if you let these feelings just rot inside of you.” Sam’s knees were aching from his crouched position, so he stood up again and sat back down, this time in the chair beside Gabriel’s. “You don’t need to abuse yourself the way he did. Asmodeus wasn’t giving you love or anything else that you needed. And now you’re hurting yourself more by throwing away the real thing because you think you shouldn’t have it.”

Gabriel’s face was hard and closed-off, but the tears finally slipped free and he turned further away in a limp attempt to conceal them.

Not even sure where the question was coming from, or why he was asking it, Sam said: “What’s scaring you?”

He anticipated silence, or a tense “Nothing.” So he was taken aback when Gabriel replied, “I’m waiting for your speech. Your tactful ‘you and I both know it’s time for you to leave the Bunker’ speech.”

Sam balked. “Excuse me?”

“No one’s accusing you of intent to actually do it,” Gabriel told him. “I’m just answering the question: that’s what I’m afraid of.”

“I’m not - ”

“I know. I’m still scared of it, and I’m sorry about that.”

“Nobody here wants you to leave. Especially not me. I want you to stick around until you get sick of us.” Sam wondered if Gabriel could hear the tightness in his own throat. “I’m not changing my mind about that because you feel like you miss Asmodeus; I can be better than he was.”

“You think I don’t know that already? I’m sad, not simple. But that's just the issue: you’re providing your best, and I’m not taking it like I should be. Come on, doesn’t it make you feel just a little bit unappreciated to hear me say ‘I wish Asmodeus could be here to help’?”

“No, but it makes me worry about how bad he screwed with your mind.”

Gabriel didn’t reply, and Sam didn’t press him. In the distance, he could hear people moving around - probably Dean getting coffee, or Jack getting cereal, or both of them. 

“Listen,” Gabriel said finally, “I hope you know I can see the difference. You’re not him; you couldn’t be any less like him. You’d never, ever do to me what he did to me, and I hate that, and I love that. It’s just that he did give me something - something I don’t know how to describe, if it wasn’t love. I wish he hadn’t played those games with me, but he did; he played them like they were guitar picks and I was an out-of-tune six-string. And you’ve gotta understand - what was I supposed to do, you know? When I got those glimpses of kindness? How could I not give in and just - just be happy about them? How could I not be scared to death that he would change his mind? And how could I not hate everything about myself when he inevitably made it clear that that kindness had been a mistake?”

Sam realized he couldn’t speak, so he only nodded.

“But,” Gabriel pleaded, “I don’t want him. I don’t want Asmodeus, Sam; I want _you._ ”

Sam swallowed. “Good. Because I’m here.” He cleared his throat. “Hey - since you’re in the swing of it, what else do you want right now?”

Gabriel leaned away. “What?”

“Right now. What do you want? Tell me.”

Gabriel floundered. “I - um. Nothing.”

Sam waited.

“Um,” Gabriel stammered, “The coffee, I guess.”

Sam passed it to him. “Might be cold.”

“I don’t care. But, uh - ”

“You want something else?”

“No.”

“You were going to ask.”

“I …” Gabriel shuddered. Sam had the urge to wrap a blanket around him. Perhaps after this he would offer to take him back to Sam’s own bedroom and let him get a few hours of sleep there.

Gabriel opened his arms.

"Oh," said Sam, and leaned forward.

Gabriel didn't speak, but he did relax into the embrace.

That was all the thanks Sam could have asked for.


End file.
